Israeli commandos storm aid ship with paintball guns

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/10199480.stm

Extreme paintball! Seriously, paintball guns? The Israelis are going soft!

South Africa yields tonnes of comedy gold

Julius Malema is a controversial figure. He is a member of the ruling ANC Youth League and excites crowds with rousing cries of land redistribution.

He also likes nothing better than to sing the slightly divisive song 'Kill the Boer', which might have been the inspiration for the murder of Eugene Terreblanche in April.

Except now this brash, articulate populist has been disciplined by his own party for being a little too akin to Robert Mugabe for their liking.

He has therefore changed his tune, or rather his lyrics. He can now be spotted at rallies crying 'Kiss the Boer'.

The new song reportedly has South Africa's Afrikaner population in a panic, dreading the possibility that Malema could at any time lunge at their lips with his.

For a thoroughly more humorous rendering of this story see below:

http://www.hayibo.com/2010/05/24/kiss-the-boer-worse-than-death-to-terrified-ultra-straight-farmers/

North Korea cuts all ties to the South

North Korea has cut all ties with South Korea after an international report blamed the North for sinking a South Korean warship back in March.

The communist state denied it sank the Cheonan with a torpedo and has threatened all out war

The countries are technically still at war as the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice but not a peace treaty.

South Korea is reported to be shaking in its boots after its northern neighbour decided to stop propping up the capitalist world and leave it to fend for itself.

Tax losses and crime cost Africa ten times the money it receives in aid

Trillions of dollars have been drained out of Africa via a shadowy financial system that has left most of the cash in the hands of western financial institutions.

The report by US body Global Financial Integrity (GFI) suggested that even the most conservative estimates leave Africa with a loss of $1.8 trillion over the past four decades, or an average $989 per person between 1970 and 2008.

The figure dwarfs the vast revenues African countries receive in aid from developed countries. For every dollar given in aid $10 flows out to financial institutions.

Despite the continent's notoriety for bribery and theft by officials the report says these forms of corruption account for just 3% of the cross-border flow of illicit money around the world and the figure is likely to be the same in Africa.

Commercial tax evasion, mainly through trade mis-pricing, contributes 60% to 65% of the global total, while drug trafficking, racketeering and counterfeiting makes up 30% to 35%.

Illicit outflows from Africa grew at an average of 11.9% a year over the four decades studied in the report. It has eaten through the continent's GDP. Losses rose from around 2% of GDP in 1970 to a peak of 11% in 1987 then dropped to 4% for much of the 1990s, only to increase again to 8% of GDP in 2007 and 7% in 2008.

The capital loss has hampered development and attempts to alleviate poverty. Even the IMF and the World Bank estimate that Africa has lost $854bn between 1970 and 2008.

This would be enough to wipe out the continent's 2008 external debt of $250bn and potentially leave $600bn for tackling poverty and stoking economic growth.

Instead cumulative illicit flows from the continent increased from about $57bn in the decade of the 1970s to $437bn over the nine years 2000-2008.

GFI director Raymond Baker said: "This massive flow of money out of Africa is facilitated by a global shadow financial system comprising tax havens, secrey jurisdictions, disguised corporations, anonymous trust accounts, fake foundations, trade mis-pricing and money-laundering techniques."

A historic day: Clegg seals the deal, Cameron becomes Prime Minister

Just when I decide I've had enough of the endless circulation of speculation from a stream of talking heads sure enough the babble is overtaken by real events. It all came about rather quickly. And would you believe it, David Cameron is now the Prime Minister.

After five days of intensive negotiations that saw Nick Clegg and his Liberal Democrats playing off the two major parties to see who would concede the best deal, the 'kingmaker' decided to agree to a formal coalition with the Conservative Party.

It is therefore a day for the history books. Britain has its the first coalition for 70 years and the youngest Prime Minister for 200 years (but only just: Tony Blair was 44 when he took power in 1997, David Cameron is 43). It is the first time in 30 years that a Conservatives have ejected a Labour government.

The last coalition government in Britain formed during the Second World War, a time of unparalleled crisis and urgency. While Britain may not face the same existential threat today, the size of its national debt and the dire state of the economy have forced politicians to put the national interest first.

That said, Nick Clegg has pulled off a coup that sees him installed as Deputy Prime Minister and four of his allies given positions in the Cabinet. Vince Cable is to have an influential role in the Treasury.

Opportunities like this do not come round often for the Liberal Democrats and despite the pressure Clegg didn't blow his chance.

The horse-trading took several twists and turns before delivering Tuesday afternoon's result. Gordon Brown looked set to have outmanoeuvred the Cameron when he announced he would resign by September if a formal Lib-Lab coalition came into being.

The move forced the Conservatives to immediately offer the Liberal Democrats a referendum on electoral reform that could see the first-past-the-post system replaced with the Additional Vote (AV). It is the least disadvantageous option for the Conservatives but it would still be likely to lose them seats if implemented.

However a Lib-Lab pact was still considered more likely due to their policies having more in common than they did with the Conservatives.

But the talks broke down over issues the Lib Dems thought wouldn't be disputed, including the abolition of the identity card scheme. Senior former Labour ministers John Reid and David Blunkett also spoke against against the creation of a 'progressive alliance' on the grounds that it would be seen as a coalition of the losers.

They voiced fears that smaller nationalist parties such as the SNP in Scotland, whose support would be required to push Bills through Parliament, could hold the government to ransom by demanding less damaging spending cuts at the expense of England.

Reid said a Lib-Lab coalition would be "mutually assured destruction" as they would be seen to be snubbing the electorate. Labour is therefore better off conceding defeat and regrouping to better its chances of snatching back power at the next election.

Whether or not the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition is the 'strong and stable' government they promised remains to be seen. As Nick Robinson said in his blog, it will either collapse under the pressure of competing tensions between and within the two parties or it will shape politics for generations to come.

But perhaps the best pithy statement that best summarises the historic events of Tuesday 11th May came from Guardian reporter Sam Jones.

Referencing the April Fool's Labour poster his newspaper created as the election kicked off, which featured a menacing, rough-hewn Brown daring Cameron to 'step outside, posh boy', Jones remarked that Tuesday's outcome, which saw former Etonian Cameron and the equally well-heeled Nick Clegg enter Number 10, could be summed up in four simple words:



And just in case you haven't seen it:

ICC prosecutor arrives in Kenya to begin post-election violence probe

The chief prosecutor in the International Criminal Court at The Hague has arrived in Kenya to start a long awaited investigation into the country's 2007-8 post-election violence.

Luis Morena-Ocampo landed in Nairobi on Saturday for a five-day visit in which he will meet victims of the unrest.

He said: "We will investigate the crimes, protecting the victims and respecting the rights of the suspects. We will follow the evidence, and we will prosecute those responsible

This will be no easy task considering high-ranking politicians are believed to have fomented the violence. Divisions among Kenya's diverse ethnic groups resulted in bloodshed following the disputed election where incumbent President Kibaki was accused of stealing the election.

Despite the difficult task ahead of him, Moreno-Ocampo said he hoped the investigation would discourage violence in the 15 African countries due to hold elections over the next 18 months.

Islamic militants seize Somali coastal town

A heavily armed Islamic group has taken control of Haradheere, a coastal town used as a base for pirates situated in northern Somalia.

Fighters from Hizbul Islam gained control of the town Sunday morning. It is believed they entered the town unchallenged and have pledged to take over more towns in the region.

Senior officials of the group have stated their intent to build a local government in Haradheere to entrench their power.

Sheikh Mohammed Osman Arus, a Hizbul Islam spokesman, denied claims that the group entered the town to engage in piracy.

However pirates said the group had approached them to demand a share of their plunder, but they refused. It is believed at least three hijacked vessels are being held in the town.

Hizbul Islam say the are restoring law and order but the allure of highly lucrative pirate trade could have been too hard to ignore.

The fundamentalist group has vowed to topple the UN-backed government in Mogadishu, which is protected by 3,000 African Union soldiers.

I cannot help but guess at the complaints circulating Haradheere at the moment. Perhaps something along the lines of: 'Bloody Islamic militants, coming here and taking our jobs.' I assume many other hardworking pirates agree.

Astrophysicist Brian Cox reveals the third greatest threat to humanity: the supernova

Channel 4's Alternative Election 2010 was a great way to pass the first three hours of election night, especially because during this period absolutely nothing happens. Unless you count Labour's victory in its stronghold Sunderland as a surprise.

At one point Jimmy Carr interviewed Brian Cox, the former band member of D:Ream which was responsible for the New Labour 'Things Can Only Get Better' back in 1997. He's also a highly respected particle physicist who spends a lot of time in the Large Hadron Collider and making documentaries about our solar system.

One thing I was surprised and slightly disturbed to learn about him was how excitable he sounded about the several ways nature could wipe out our species. Asked to list the top five threats to humanity he reeled off in ascending order supervolcanoes, plague, supernovas, asteroids and finally our own stupidity.

As he was outlining why a supervolcano in Indonesia, which erupted 70,000 years ago leaving India coated in ash and our species' breeding population at a measly 1,000, could well be set to blow again, the glint in his eye made me wonder whether how keen he was to witness the event in his lifetime.

When he got to the Bettlejuice supernova , which he said would wipe out all life on earth if it was pointing towards us at the time it imploded, I decided to do a bit of further research (ie. scan a few paragraphs on wikipedia). I then understood the glint in his eye: this stuff is simply fascinating.

A supernova is when a large star explodes unleashing a burst of radiation so bright it outshines the entire galaxy before fading from view over several weeks or months. Such an explosion is so powerful it can release more energy than our sun is expected to emit over its whole life span. They occur on average every 50 years in the Milky Way galaxy, which in astrophysical terms is very rare.

So how would these exploding stars threaten our existence down here on comfy and warm planet Earth? Well it's only 'near-Earth' supernovas - sorry, supernovae - that we have to worry about, although this translates as anything up to 3,000 light years away. Oh dear.

One such candidate is red giant Betelgeuse, a mere 640 light years from Earth. It is only a few million years old, a spring chicken for a star of its size, but has evolved rapidly because of its high mass. As a result it could well supernova in the next millenium, if it hasn't already.

If it does it would release a torrent of Gamma rays which would destroy our precious ozone layer, leaving us at the mercy to harmful cosmic and solar radiation. Thankfully Betelgeuse should fire off its lethal Gamma rays in a safe direction due to the angle of its axis. I hope it stays that way.

Economic blunder could cause North Korean regime to implode

The North Korean regime has proved a stubborn one. It refused to disintegrate following the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, its main financial backer. It has declined from following China's state managed implementation of capitalism. And despite being the world's only communist dynasty, it doesn't interpret the hereditary principle in the most conventional way. This year Kim Il Sung can celebrate his 62nd year as the country's head of state alongside the 16th anniversary of his death.

All of the above and more have led analysts to predict the collapse of North Korea, the world's most isolated country. The 1995-98 famine caused a million deaths and stunted the growth of two million children through malnourishment. The floods of 2006 and 2007 once again left its population reliant on external aid.

The North Korean regime continued to tell its people they lived in a paradise unequalled anywhere else on earth. So what if the capital Pyongyang only gets two hours of electricity a day? In America they only have two hours of electrcity a week! It's hard to prove them wrong with no internet, mobile phones, radios, foreign TV stations and any access whatsoever to the outside world.

But now the 'Dear Leader' may have at last made a fatal error. In November 2009 the North Korean government implemented a currency revaluation, which wiped out the hard won savings its citizens had made from the black markets that have appeared throughout the country in recent years.

The state's heavy handed response to the intrusion of capitalism has created political and economic instability at a time when it is suffering a succession crisis, which could shatter the fragile stability North Korea has enjoyed for decades.

Pyongyang is desperate to groom Kim Jong Il's youngest son, Kim Jong Un, to replace his father, who is believed to have suffered a stroke two years ago.

However the currency misstep has worsened the internal power struggles of the North Korean regime, potentially jeopardising the transition.

Seoul University Professor Kim Byung-Yeon says there are now two kinds of people within North Korea's elite, those who benefit from the market, and those who benefit from restraining the market. He believes the tension between these two groups could lead to a "meltdown".

Pyongyang is also losing its ability to control information. North Koreans are increasingly able to get their hands on mobile phones, radios and foreign DVDs. The currency crisis, so obviously inflicted by the ruling elite and not a foreign power, has fuelled the people's hunger for information about the outside world.

The stability of North Korea is so uncertain even China is talking about its demise, with at least one Chinese expert warning Beijing not to bail out the country.

So what would a North Korean collapse involve? Andrew Lankov, a scholar at Seoul's Sookmin University,said: "I don't believe there is going to be a peacful, gradual end of the North Korean regime. It will be dramatic, and probably violent."

Neither China nor South Korea want the North Korean regime to collapse. Although China no longer needs a communist buffer state between it and the capitalist world of South Korea, it doesn't find the prospect of millions of refugees flooding its northeastern regions particularly appealing. It still has a policy of deporting refugees back to the North.

South Korea faces a more existential threat. The North Korea's regime has justified its existence by protecting its people from the American imperialist aggressors and their puppets in the South. Its people are taught that it was the Americans who started the Korean war in 1950 rather than the other way round. The country's military, the fifth largest in the world, is hotwired to launch an invasion of the South, with thousands of missiles aimed at the capital Seoul.

The prospects of reunification are slim. South Korea has enjoyed an enormous economic boom that has lifted it from the status of a third world country to an economic powerhouse in the space of a generation. Its highly westernised youth know that their lifestyles would certainly fare for the worse should the two Koreas be united.

With the new generation lacking the feeling of brotherhood that still fills many older people with the desire for reunification, the prospects of a unified Korea seem to diminish with the passage of time.

US military warns of oil shortages in just five years

THE US military has warned demand for oil could outstrip supply as soon as 2015 and cause significant political and economic impact.

Known as 'peak oil', the consequences of oil shortages could lead to a slowing of economic growth at a time when the globalised economy is struggling to get back on its feet.

The warning has become starker after the BP oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico on 20 April. The accident has forced President Obama to reverse the decision he had made the previous week to allow oil drilling off the US coast.

The Joint Operating Environment report from the US Joint Forces Command states: "By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015 the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10m barrels per day.

It adds: "While it is difficult to predict precisely what economic, political and strategic effects such a shortfall might produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the developing and developed worlds.

"Such an economic slowdown would exacerbate other unresolved tensions, push fragile and failing states further down the path toward collapse, and perhaps have serious economic impact on both India and China."

The report contrasts sharply with the message of the Wick's report on UK energy policy, released last summer, which dismissed fears of peak oil in the foreseeable future.

The Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) also denies there is any short-term risk of oil shortages.

However senior officials in the IEA admit in private that there is considerable disagreement about this optimistic outlook.

The US military is thought to be the biggest single user of petrol in the world, making the procurement of future supplies a high priority. However with a moratorium on offshore drilling in place the US armed forces are likely to rely on oil from the politically unstable Middle East for some time to come.

The Joint Operating Environment Report provides a bleak historical precedent for the possible future we face: "One should not forget that the Great Depression spawned a number of totalitarian regimes that sought economic prosperity for their nations by ruthless conquest."